got me on a bender, i'm the great pretender
by ten.years.only.with.you
Summary: maybe you'll always be the one i'm missing. klaroline appearances by stefan, elijah, rebekah, & katerina


_got me on a bender, I'm the great pretender, puttin' on a masquerade. _

x

he buys every damn sunflower in the new Orleans farmer's market and tosses the lot in the river and hopes they float into the fucking Mississippi delta, drowning in the whorls of dirty sea blue. his combat boots stomp cracks in the cobblestones all the way back to compound.

elijah is stationary in front of the fire place just like every other damn day, impeccably cut suit sagging in the shoulders, tie tightened like a noose around his neck, tossing parchment into the licking flame. he sighs and klaus can hear it from the French doors at the front entrance.

he tries to remember how to breathe, how to be a man.

x

his fingers are perpetually stained with crimson spurls of blood and inky charcoal grinds under touch. he doesn't sleep, bottle green eyes heavy with day after day of performing the greatest magic trick the devil ever did.

elijah runs off daily to god knows where but returns at the kiss of night smelling of thistles and whiskey. klaus crumbles more flowers beneath his feet in the months that katerina petrova than his entire existence and less than a year later, elijah still reeks of satin ribbons and French macaroons, an entire marriage ripped between his head and his heart to a succubus that ran away with what was left over three centuries ago.

even six feet under, katerina is still chased.

x

rebekah's room is covered in dust and swatches of bathing moonlight. there are empty wine bottles on every surface. smashed tumblers of long since dried up scotch mark marcel's appearance when he thinks no one else knew. there is one photo tucked neatly in the mirror of her at prom with matt Donovan, his smile so big and his suit jacket around rebekah's shoulders.

klaus slams the door so hard the entire house shakes, and out of ceremony more than anything else, he bolts the door and throws the key into the fireplace. elijah barely looks up from his book.

x

he runs all the way to savannah when he hears of damon's death. he watches stefan sob and throw furniture all over the place, cracked window panes his only screen. he leaves a bottle of hundred year old whiskey and the name of a coven in Washington state on the front porch and slinks into the night.

(stefan finds the whiskey and the paper two days later, books a flight, downs the bottle, and taps out a text.

_Stefan: quit distracting yourself down there. don't think we don't know what you're doing._

the reply is almost instantaneous.

_Nik: touché.)_

x

he only hears through their incestuous little chain of gossip that rebekah went to mystic falls and before she could cross the town line was intercepted by a goddamn crazed doppelganger on a fucking witch herb high.

it's actually hilarious because he has to deal with the fucking werewolf coven and some dingbat blonde carbon copy that thinks he doesn't know she isn't fucking his _son_ and sixteen year old witch with the libido from hell. tyler lockwood and Elena gilbert sound like good prospects from where he's sitting.

x

_Elijah: Niklaus, I've gone to Virginia for the eve. _

he doesn't ask why.

katerina died a year ago. and he's been making thistle and bramble crowns dotted with bloody raspberries in the quiet of the parlor for days.

x

he goes to see stefan again.

they sit, quite domestically, on rockers on the front porch, air like sweet peaches, dangling with juice, sundown eminent on the horizon and stefan's crass bottles of beer betwixt long fingers. he doesn't really speak, just listens to his friend—good good, his _friend_—talk about life and loss and for some reason

_all he can see is kol burning into ash_, but

when stefan smiles sadly out the corner, very different from that confident sass of self in 1920, klaus opens his mouth and tries to be what he is here for. he still has a brother, one that would die for him, and he wonders if it is possible to split oneself in two and give something up for someone. he feels weak and stupid on the thought immediately until stefan invites him in for dinner which turns out to be Italian as always and they chew in silence until he excuses himself and runs all the way back to the gulf coast.

the air is weightier there and his conscience tries something heavy.

(he hugs elijah for the first time in a long time and his brother hugs him back.

this is what he misses most about it.)

x

he feels unedited and broken and irresponsibly foolish for the first time in a long time.

Christ it feels almost good.

x

the water in the levees stinks of brine and fallen magnolias.

it's October and he's still a wreck in the biggest game of hide and seek. he drinks a case of bourbon in the churchyard of Jackson square, heckling every mortal being that walks by, flying bottles and cackling curse words under the autumn sky. he pauses for a brief moment with the storm chill on his neck and the haunting vision of a girl with muddled Mediterranean eyes and the smile that could stop a hurricane, blonde waves of hair in a windblown and a look on her face that would cut the world off at its fucking knees.

she's not real until she's five feet from him and he counts the beats of his erratic heart out of sync, waking up after a millennia. and time stops and then she sees him and every nerve in his body wracks on overdrive—

_why the fuck are you drunk on a Monday night in the middle of town are you out of your fucking mind there are people everywhere trying to find you and find me and by the way I am public enemy number one because you are so obsessed with me and god I never thought I'd have to come here and trespass on your territory because I never wanted to and you have to believe me and Christ where is elijah isn't he supposed to be your caretaker and goddamnit bonnie died and I am here on a mission—_

he reaches her in a breath of air and puts a hand to her cheek. she stops speaking immediately and wrenches his body onto the ground, that bottle of bourbon splashing and cracking on the damp cobblestones. her hand finds his throat, applying pressure and despite everything with the moon slashing against her face and her Barbie pink fingernails digging into his kin, she hasn't stopped yelling, voice echoing around him, _he smiles_.

she laughs in repose and the sound booms across the empty square, lightning in dark corners.

x

_two months ago: mystic falls_

_and if you tell him that I was the one that wrenched you across to safety you are going to regret it, you got me?_ caroline threatens, flowered sundress nothing compared to the wildflowers woven in the plaits of her hair, ferocity in those blue eyes and a snarl on her mouth.

_alright, I got it, Christ you and nik really are made for each other, you know that don't you, caroline. of course you do, that's why you hide and why he pines and why you both pretend that it's easier to hate the other than to miss them_, rebekah taunts examining her nails, her own blonde hair in loose curls around her neck. she leaves before the baby vamp's hands can toss her over the town line, curls of dust in her wake and a shattered girl in her rearview.

x

_two months ago: new Orleans_

_Rebekah: not to worry, nik, Elena stopped me at the last moment._

_Nik: at least she was good enough for something I suppose. _

_Rebekah: I don't know where caroline was._

_Nik: I didn't ask now did i._

_Rebekah: you didn't have to._

x

_and I love you, whether or not you want me to_, elijah scripts in another letter that katerina won't read.

somewhere in the deafening roar of the French quarter, klaus learns not to read between the lines and suffocates himself into a happy death by the smile of a girl who chooses to wear a battered crown and put down her sword.


End file.
